Advantages

Disadvantages

Good choice but USB gets disconnected.

This is my second purchase from Seagate, after getting their 500gb external hard drive. It's the one I currently use on a daily basis, as my 500gb one is already full. My impression of this one is quite better, although it is not fully functional either, which makes me think that I might not buy another Seagate drive in the future. However, it's still a pretty good one and does the job fine.

Appearance-wise, this is identical to the 500gb one. Same size, same design. It's very sleek looking and shiny black in color. It has a mirror effect that reflects the surroundings on the surface. It also has the Seagate mark and a little led that blinks when the drive is active.

Capacity-wise this is great. I have been using it for 5 years and I still haven't gotten it full, although I download a load of anime episodes/movies/series and I never delete stuff. I'm very satisfied.

Due to its size, I can't imagine carrying it around a lot. In fact it's always on my desk, and I try not to move it around because it tends to shut down when I do. But I'll get to that later.

After 3 years of use, the USB port on the drive started being a bit "loose". I don't know how to describe this but it just doesn't make proper contact with the cable. I might move the cable or the drive and it disconnects very easily, even though the usb is plugged in. I don't know how to deal with this, so I try not to move it around. This might be a huge problem for some of you, so if you feel that you need to move it, try something else. For me it's working fine since I never have to carry it.

I give it 4 stars because it's very useful and good quality, but these random disconnects are annoying.

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

Great hard drive for backing up lots of data but not ideal for traveling with.

I bought this hard drive 3 years ago when I started university; I didn't want to have all my university work all in one place in case my computer stopped working, a memory stick being too small plus the chance of losing it , and a DVD being too outdated (Yes, storing files on CDs and DVDs is outdated now!) led me to get an external hard drive.

--- Ease of Use ---As with most external hard drives, it is plug and play. It comes with a USB cable that you plug into your computer or laptop, as well as another lead to the mains plug socket - it needs a mains source of power as the USB alone cannot provide enough power. Once you have plugged it into your computer you can use it in the same way you access memory sticks or other storage device; from the start menu, click My Computer, then the hard drive should appear (either with the name 'Seagate' or 'External Hard Drive' or similar). Once you have opened it (double click on it) you can copy/read files to/from it like you would a folder - drag files to it, save files to it, open files from it etc.

--- Capacity ---It holds 2TB (but can also be bought in other sizes). To make clear, 2TB is a lot of space! Think of it in terms of pictures, given an average digital camera you would be able to put over 1 million (1,000,000) photos onto the hard drive before it ran out of space! Another way to look at it is in a text document, (assuming ASCII characters for those that know what I mean) 1 letter would be 1 byte, and 2TB is... a lot of bytes... 2,199,023,255,552... assuming an average word is 5 letters, you could write 439,804,651,110 words... yes I've confused you now, but what I'm saying is you could write a 440 billion word report and store it on this hard drive... luckily as a student I haven't been asked to write past a 10,000 word report yet... touch wood.

Yes I may have lost quite a few readers in that as numbers are not nice to read, and to be honest you don't really need to know all that, all you need to know is you can store a lot on this hard drive without fear of filling it up.

--- Reliability ---External hard drives (not including solid state which are the ones which don't have a spinning disk in them) in general are very unreliable, but it greatly depends on how you treat them. Many of my friends have hard drives which have failed within the first year but not surprising really seeing how they get thrown around constantly and are shaking up and down in their backpacks while walking to university every day. This hard drive however is 3 years old now and still going strong; I have looked after it well and try to put padding around it when travelling to reduce the vibrations it goes through and maybe that has helped or maybe it is just a very well built hard drive. Honestly I wouldn't trust it with important files or those which I only have one copy of, I'd always back everything up on my computer when things go on the hard drive, but that's just common sense to be honest as these hard drives are mechanical devices and 100% will fail eventually, maybe it will last 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or even 20 years but the fact is it will one day stop working and when it does it is extremely hard and costly to get your files back, thus you should always have a back up of EVERYTHING!

--- Design ---The shape is quite sleek and attractive, but quite big and bulky for todays standards. It is about the size and weight of an A5 bible... considering how small and light laptop hard drives are nowadays it's a shame this has failed to meet the same specifications. If you're just keeping it at home then it won't be a problem but if you want to use it as portable then perhaps a smaller model is better.

--- Noise ---As with all of these types of hard drives (Again, not including solid state) they have moving parts in them, specifically a disk spinning at 10 thousand times per second, so of course they will make some noise. The noise it gives off isn't too bad but I have noticed it has got louder over the years. I wouln't say it's a problem as it is not loud enough to keep you awae it you're transfering files through the night etc but still significant.

--- Temperature ---Again, a disk spinning at such high speeds as well as the circuitry inside a confinded space, it will heat up. This hard drive does heat up a lot more than I'd like, which makes me keep it unplugged when I'm not using it and I'd never let it transfer files without me being in as I am worried it may cause hard... yes I know worst case scenario it would simply stop working, but still something I am cautious about and a big disadvantage to this hard drive.

--- Overall ---Although there are many disadvantages to this hard drive (namely its size and weight, as well as how hot it gets when plugged in) overall I am satisfied with its performance. It has lasted me 3 years and performs well at what it does, a generally average transfer rate and very easy to use, it shows no signs of breaking any time soon and if it did break I would consider looking at buying this same one again.

At a price of £75 3 years ago, the price hasn't changed much and that just shows people must be happy with it. (Usually if a hard drive has a high failure rate they will lower the price to get rid of them).

Would recommend to anyone needing a backup device in their home, but if you want to travel around with it a lot then would advice looking for something smaller or a solid state hard drive.

(Please note this review may also be posted on Ciao under the same username.)

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

Okay drive, but personally would go for a Western Digital due it's noise

I've previously owned a Western Digital 1TB which I have no complaints about; I thought I'd mix things up a bit and go for a Seagate 2TB.

Whilst I've had no problems with it, I much prefer the WD; I've never heard a peep from it - whilst this thing hums quite prominently - to give you an idea, it's louder than a laptop and it makes a very distinct hum.

The other thing about this is that it makes you realize the drive likes to spin even when it's not plugged in via USB - it stays spun up for about a minute after you've disconnected - for what reason I do not know, but it's not particularly secure considering that's the time you're most likely to grab it and shove it in a bag. Same goes for plugging the hard drive in, it immediately spins up.

In terms of speed, no complaints. I've had no issues with the drive itself, other than it can run up to about 40 degrees or so during long transfers.

Lastly, with mechanical storage there's always a change of getting a dud - so I'd advise using this for backup (always keep a second copy elsewhere) - especially considering that (despite their good reputation) Seagate have a moderate failure rate.

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

In my experience it's a great drive

My job involves using software which generates some pretty large files. As I need to keep these in case they are needed in the future my computer over the years has become quite full. We have a network drive which is backed up regularly which is where I back-up most of my data and documents but even this is becoming quite full. I am also quite paranoid that should the network drive fail then I may lose some of my work (yes I know it is backed up but what if the back-up fails too?!) It was for this reason that around a year ago I started to look into the possibility of buying an external hard drive for my PC onto which I could also back up my work.

Asking around at work I found that quite a few colleagues seemed to be using a drive manufactured by Seagate. As they reported no problems with the way this worked I decided to follow suit and order one for myself. I didn't have any specific requirements in mind except that it should have as large a capacity as possible but at a reasonable price. Browsing through the various Seagate drives on offer I spotted the 2TB drive retailing at the reasonable price of £80. Compare this to an Iomega 500GB drive I bought for my own personal use a few months before priced at £42. The Seagate drive therefore offers 4 times the capacity at a just twice the price. Feeling quite impressed already I placed my order with the company suppliers and my drive arrived 24 hours later.

The drive itself is fairly big and bulky and certainly not one that you'd want to be carrying around. As I just wanted my drive to sit on the desk next to my PC this was not something I was particularly bothered about. The drive is rectangular in shape and measures 20cm x 13cm. It is black in colour with a very shiny, almost mirror like finish. This along with its rounded edges makes it look very sleek indeed. There are no other features on the outer casing of the drive other than a small logo at the front alongside which is a small light which turns green when the drive is on. The only problem I have with its appearance is that due to its shininess it does tend to attract rather a lot of dust!

The drive comes together with a fairly comprehensive manual, although I must admit that I simply plugged this into my PC and started using it without even glancing at it! Unlike a portable drive the Seagate drive has to not only be plugged into the PC but also to an external power supply. However the drive also powers down when the PC is shutdown even if it is connected to the mains. The power adaptor is supplied and rather handily has a UK plug along with a convertor which allows this to be used in Europe. The drive also comes with a decent sized USB cable using which I attach the drive to the back of my PC.

The drive is plug and play so there is no need to install drivers or software. As soon as I plugged the drive into my PC I could hear it start to whirr gently and a few seconds later my PC had recognised it. It is worth noting that this Seagate drive is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Transferring files from my PC to the drive is simple - just drag and drop. The drive is USB 2.0 compatible and I have found transfer rates to be quite fast, being able to transfer a few gigabytes of files in around 5 minutes. Whilst the data is transferring the green light flashes continuously, alerting the user that the drive is in use.

When in use the drive is extremely quiet and most of the time I don't even realise it's there. According to the user guide the drive also has built in power management to ensure the drive works in the most energy efficient way which I think is a really useful feature though one that is hard to evaluate! The drive is easy to access when plugged in and can be found under 'My Computer'. I have noticed that most of the time accessing the drive is instantaneous however on several occasions there has been a tiny but noticeable delay in opening it up.

I have been using this drive for around a year now and have found it to be easy to use and reliable. About 6 months after buying this I came across some reviews online about this drive and the so-called 'Click of death'. Other users have found that after using the drive for a few months it starts making a loud clicking sound after which it fails making the data on it inaccessible. The sheer number of users reporting this was quite alarming and I must admit it did put me on edge. I do make sure that the data that is on the drive is also backed up on the network which is fine for work but perhaps not so practical for home use. I am pleased to report that so far there has been no such 'click of death' with my drive although a few months ago it did start to chug quite loudly which did panic me a little but thankfully it amounted to nothing. Now, after a year of continuous use it is still going strong. I would therefore, based on my own experience, recommend this drive though I may just be lucky and it may be worth taking note of the problems other users have encountered with this drive.

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

Buy if its on sale. If not, look at other drives that are more stable.

I bought this 2 TB External hard drive from Seagate mainly to use at work. I used it to back up large files at work.

The initial set up was very easy. I only had to plug it in and it worked out of the box. It was already formatted to work with a Windows Machine. The first file transfers were a breeze. Not very quick but that it to be expected for the 5900 RPM Hard Drive it has. Over the course of a day, I managed to transfer over nearly 1 TB of files. I was very happy with the way it was working but soon after a few weeks, some problems started to occur...

Problem 1, the hard drive would 'unmount' it self and Windows would find it again 30 seconds later and annoy me with a pop up asking what I want to do with the files it has found on the External Drive. This happened about 4 times in a working day. So I decided to just unplug it and turn it off until I needed it again.

Problem 2, this problem is an extension of problem 1. When I had large files or many large files to transfer over, the External Drive occasionally unmounted it self mid way through a transfer. This has only happened about 5 times so far. To fix this, i may need to reformat the drive and start again.

So, I would recommend this drive but i would suggest maybe doing your own formatting first before you start to use it.

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

Good for what it is but might pay to try someone else if money's not an issue.

Well I'm of mixed opinions on this one. I bought this drive for two major reasons.

Price - the drive is actually really well priced for what it is, it may not be the best price out on the market but that ties us into reason two.

Brand - Seagate is a good branded hard drive, and a name of which I trust.

Now to the performance.

Transfer rates - transfers run over USB 2.0 much as you might expect, it does the job and is actually very fast, I've been really pleased on the whole and have no major complaints in this department - what is a bit distressing from my perspective though is sometimes when I boot up I find that the drive doesn't automatically mount under Windows 7, I've not much looked into reasons but unplugging the drive's power and plugging it back in tends to work well on the whole.

Style: Simple black box, it's really nice to look at on the desktop, at least as far as hard drives go.

Warranty: The drive comes with a 2 year limited warranty - I've not put this to the test yet but it beats the one year most come with, would be nice to see three though - why? Just feels a better number.

Power: The drive comes with power saving technologies it seems as after a period of inactivity it shuts down automatically which is a nice to those of us who are power concious.